A costuming life in colour

Tag Archives: shirtwaist

This is the the first in what will be a series of posts exploring a pile of gorgeous antique clothing my friend Alice’s Dad magically pulled out of their attic. Why no one in my family can magically pull antique clothing out of the attic is something I think should be worked on. Amanda of A Dedicated Follower of Fashion was kind enough (and tiny enough) to model most of this clothing to help us see what it looked like on a real person.

I’ve decided to do these posts in a small series as there were a whole bunch of garments and I took a lot of photos of each of them. I wanted to share some detail shots and not just one picture of each. I don’t know about you all but I like me some detail shots!

We’re going to start simple here with this lovely Edwardian shirtwaist. Amanda and I think it’s in the 1906-1910 range (roughly) but I’d of course love any input if you have a differing opinion!

I apologize for all of the backlighting. The room is lovely in that there’s windows on every side, but on a sunny day…there’s windows on every side.

Sleeve close up

The neck wraps around and hooks in the back

waist tape to help create the pigeon breasted shape

The waist closes with hooks and eyes up the front with the collar attached only to one side

The neck closure is the most interesting part. It’s sewn on one side from the back to the center front. Then it’s unsewn and just wraps around the neck to hook in the back. This allows the blouse to close with a center front fastening and the collar a center back fastening.